Friday, April 25, 2014

You know, it’s easy to see how we’ve misinterpreted fossils.
It’s difficult for any part of an animal to fossilize, so complete
specimens are rare and really special. So inaccurate palaeoart is
inevitable, and really not surprising at all. Then there are the times
when reconstructions accidentally depict a different animal entirely
unintentionally. We all know about how Tyrannosaurus was originally
reconstructed on Allosaurus and Apatosaurus on Camarosaurus, but they’re not
alone. Sometimes it’s because of misidentification, and sometimes it’s simply
due to laziness in paleontological reconstructions.Here are the top 10 Prehistoric Animals
people picture when they try to picture a different animal (there has to be a
specific word for this phenomenon. I’m sure there’s one in German or
something).

Thursday, April 3, 2014

The thing about the featured animal today is you’ve probably
seen it before. There’s a lot of museums with it-the Harvard museum, Yale
Peabody museum, Field Museum, Denver museum,
Smithsonian National Museum,
Carnegie museum, and American museum each have a mount of it. There are
multiple mounts at the place of its discovery, the Agate
Fossil Beds
National Monument in Nebraska. I’m sure most of you have seen
this one and wandered past it, thinking it a horse or a big bizarre mammal. It
is a big, bizarre mammal, but it’s one that’s one of my favorites. This is
Moropus, 5 species of a large, successful mammal that roamed the American west.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Well, I know all the real blogs are doing elaborate April Fool's gags, but I'm going to save that for next year. Still, I want to entertain, so today we're doing do an MST3k-style commentary track for the Korean dinosaur movie Tarbosaurus aka Speckles The Tarbosaurus.

About Me

Hi everyone! You may know me already, but 99% of you won't. I've decided to make a blog for myself. I'm a anthropology student who has returned to his original passion for palaeontology. Ever since I was little, I've been fascinated with the weird and wonderful animals that have inhabited our planet and I've made this blog to keep this in my mind and hopefully in yours. Most people blog about their interests, and while I've got a range of interests-see history and anthropology above, not to mention zoology, astronomy, art, cooking, science fiction and fantasy films and literature, and a myriad of others, the one I want to do for a living is the study of Earth's ancient past.

On this blog I'll review papers, talk about fossils, museums, and taxa, review art, film, literature, and our culture's view of paleontology, and share memories and insights. I've been inspired by the far better blogs of professional palaeontologists, and I'll share them as time goes on. I'm also open to requests and questions of opinions, the latest palaeo news, and discussions with other fans informal and professional.

I think this is going to have fun, and I'm hoping my readers will have just as much fun.

Copyright: All media and print reviewed belongs to the owners and publishers. Likewise, all art used for this blog belongs to their artists. This is a non-profit blog for education and entertainment.